Patents Assigned to CGR
  • Patent number: 5175773
    Abstract: In order to reconstruct an angiographic arborescence, two images are acquired according to orientations substantially perpendicular to each other of an arborescence (IVA,CX) to be reconstructed. By a follow-up operation of the segments, the coordinates of the arborescence segments are reconstructed. Indeterminations resulting from the too small number of acquisitions effected are removed by emitting hypotheses (AV, IV) on forms deductible from the recorded acquisitions and by verifying those hypotheses with respect to a model. The model has the particularity of being structural, that is to say substantially descriptive. In this structural model, each arborescence segment is characterized by a number, by a direction (49-54), and by the numbers, direction and number of segments preceding or following it. By operating in this way, it has been proved that angiographic images may be reconstituted in a more rapid and simple way.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 23, 1991
    Date of Patent: December 29, 1992
    Assignee: General Electric CGR S.A.
    Inventors: Mireille Garreau, Alain Bouliou, Rene Collorec, Jean-Louis Coatrieux
  • Patent number: 5174298
    Abstract: In an imaging process and system by transillumination of a medium illuminated by transparency by a beam, an acoustic transducer emits an acoustic wave in the medium which interferes with the beam. The frequency of the light passing through the medium is then shifted from the value of the frequency of the acoustic wave. A collimating device whose object focus is located at the intersection of the acoustic wave and the light beam collects the light diffused by the medium.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 27, 1990
    Date of Patent: December 29, 1992
    Assignee: General Electric CGR S.A.
    Inventors: Daniel Dolfi, Francois Micheron
  • Patent number: 5166969
    Abstract: The invention concerns radiology systems and, more particularly, in such systems, to a method to determine and calibrate the lumination (namely the quantity of light received multiplied by the exposure time) received by the radiographic film in order to obtain a given blackening of the film. This method consists in carrying out a certain number of calibrations of the radiology system, and then in making a sensitogram of the type of film used. Then, a radiographic shot is taken with an object of a known thickness E.sub.o and, to obtain a reference optical density DO.sub.refo, the optical density DO.sub.m of the shot obtained is measured and compared with DO.sub.refo on the sensitogram to determine L.sub.ref.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 5, 1991
    Date of Patent: November 24, 1992
    Assignee: General Electric CGR S.A.
    Inventor: Robert Heidsieck
  • Patent number: 5155755
    Abstract: The disclosure pertains to X-ray tubes and, more particularly, in these tubes, it pertains to rotating anodes. The disclosed anode for an X-ray tube has a body or substrate on which a target is formed by a layer of target material, wherein the body comprises at least two parts formed by a first material, these two parts being connected to each other by a layer of a second material having greater plasticity than that of the first material.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 27, 1990
    Date of Patent: October 13, 1992
    Assignee: General Electric CGR S.A.
    Inventors: Jean-Marie Penato, Michel Laurent, Philippe Thomas
  • Patent number: 5154638
    Abstract: A high-voltage connector, in particular for feeding the cathode, two cathode filaments, and two gates of an X-ray tube, wherein the connector comprises five connections, one for power supplying the cathode, two for power supplying the cathode filaments, and the last two for power supplying the two gates, the connections being disposed in such a manner that the distance between the cathode connection and a gate connection and the distance between the two gate connections are greater than the distance between the cathode connection and a cathode filament connection.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 21, 1990
    Date of Patent: October 13, 1992
    Assignee: General Electric CGR SA
    Inventors: Jacques Sireul, Hans Jedlitschka, Jean-Michel Miquel
  • Patent number: 5149074
    Abstract: The vertical displacement of a patient support table for a radiology apparatus is obtained by means of an electromechanical device constituted by arms which are connected to each other and to the support table by means of powered articulations with synchronized movements of rotation. A relatively small minimum height of the order of 60 centimeters is thus obtained.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 10, 1991
    Date of Patent: September 22, 1992
    Assignee: General Electric CGR SA
    Inventor: Jean-Pierre Jarin
  • Patent number: 5148466
    Abstract: An X-ray apparatus includes a moving carriage having two levers hinged and designed to move equally and in opposite directions by a gear system. The movements of the levers are guided by at least one groove formed in a supporting plate, with a peg fixed to the lever co-operating with the groove. The groove includes at least two spaced-apart rectilinear portions, each corresponding to a different size of cartridge, thereby enabling the cartridge to be moved on the supporting plate.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 4, 1991
    Date of Patent: September 15, 1992
    Assignee: General Electric CGR S.A.
    Inventor: Claude Fajac
  • Patent number: 5138645
    Abstract: The disclosure concerns anodes for X-ray tubes. The disclosed anode for an X-ray tube has a body or substrate on which a target is provided by a layer of target material, wherein said anode comprises at least one layer that is interposed between said substrate and said target layer and is constituted by a material having greater plasticity than the material forming the substrate and the target material.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 27, 1990
    Date of Patent: August 11, 1992
    Assignee: General Electric CGR S.A.
    Inventors: Jean-Marie Penato, Emile Gabbay
  • Patent number: 5126672
    Abstract: A measurement is made of the effects of eddy currents during a long period (TM) in an NMR machine by placing, in this machine, a probe possessing a material capable of magnetic resonance with a small spin-spin relaxation time, and by proceeding to make a reiteration (PR) of the electromagnetic excitation (17-19) of a resonance signal in this material and to measure the resultant de-excitation NMR signal (20-22), for as many times more as the period during which the effects of the eddy currents have to be taken into account is long. It is shown that this way of doing things enables an accurate appreciation of the corrections to be made to the real field gradient pulses (23-24).
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 17, 1990
    Date of Patent: June 30, 1992
    Assignee: General Electric CGR S.A.
    Inventor: Patrick Le Roux
  • Patent number: 5125020
    Abstract: The apparatus is an anode for an X-ray tube which is rotated at high speeds during operation. The anode include a plate of refractory material with high mechanical strength. On both faces of the plate are fixed two blocks of light weight refractory material. One of the blocks is formed of several sub-blocks fixed to one another through brazing. A layer of X-ray emitting mattering is deposited on the outer surface of these sub-blocks.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 27, 1990
    Date of Patent: June 23, 1992
    Assignee: General Electric CGR S.A.
    Inventors: Jean-Marie Penato, Michel Laurent, Philippe Thomas
  • Patent number: 5124652
    Abstract: To make a gradient coil, it is decided to cut the conductors of this coil out of a plate. Thus flat conductors can be used. This helps reduce the self-inductance of the coil to be made. The coil is, moreover, optimized. A calculation is made of the coefficients of the breakdown into spherical harmonics of the field created by the coil. The coil's structure is modified so as to cancel those coefficients of this breakdown which generate a divergence in this field. It is shown that, in this way, the solution is an optimum one.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 12, 1991
    Date of Patent: June 23, 1992
    Assignee: Thomson-CGR
    Inventor: Guy Aubert
  • Patent number: 5125019
    Abstract: In an x-ray tube of the beam deflection type for a radiology apparatus, the stair-steps of the focusing device of the electron beam are extended by metallic deflecting electrodes placed in parallel relation to said stair-steps and electrically insulated from these latter by means of insulating layers. Said electrodes are brought to different potentials, the polarities and values of which depend on the direction and amplitude of deflection to be obtained.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 16, 1990
    Date of Patent: June 23, 1992
    Assignee: General Electric CGR SA
    Inventors: Bernard Evain, Horia Dumitrescu, Jean-Marie Fourmigue
  • Patent number: 5123084
    Abstract: The 3D display device of the invention is based on an octree structure of data pertaining to an object to be displayed. This structure is memorized in a memory associated with a cache memory sending blocks of data on a bus to which a geometrical processor and an image-generating circuit are connected. The geometrical processor generates the visible part of another octree corresponding to a target universe which may be positioned in any way in relation to the object universe (a cube enclosing all the data to be represented).
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 21, 1990
    Date of Patent: June 16, 1992
    Assignees: General Electric CGR S.A., Octree Corporation
    Inventors: Guy Prevost, Daniel Milon, Olivier Lis, Michel Delcroix, Bruce Edwards, Donald Meagher
  • Patent number: 5123037
    Abstract: In order to represent the bone structure of a patient's body, acquisitions are made with different irradiation energies. The irradiations are compared with these two energies in order to deduce a two-dimensional projected image which is representative of the bone structure alone. To this end, there is assigned to each pixel in the projected images a value corresponding to the thickness of bone traversed by an x-ray which has terminated at said pixel. This value is obtained by calibrating the measuring system, detector cell by detector cell, so as to correct the spatial non-uniformities of the acquisition system.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 14, 1990
    Date of Patent: June 16, 1992
    Assignee: General Electric CGR S.A.
    Inventors: Catherine Picard, Anne Rougee, Didier Saint-Felix, Yves Trousset
  • Patent number: 5121419
    Abstract: The apparatus comprises an X-ray source (6) to generate a beam of radiations (7) through an object (4) or the body of a patient to be examined and a multichannel detector (8) to provide information concerning the intensity of the radiation retransmitted by the object examined. Both the source and detector are mounted on a rotor (2) integral with the stator (1) which surrounds the object (4) examined. It also comprises at least one lateral diffusion light guide (14, 15) wound round the rotor (2) or on the internal surface of the stator (1) to transmit optically between optical receiver and emitter means (9, 10) of the rotor (2) and corresponding optical means (16, 17) of the stator (1), the information provided by the multichannel detector (8) and the control information of the X-ray source (6).
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 31, 1990
    Date of Patent: June 9, 1992
    Assignee: Thomson-CGR
    Inventors: Francois Micheron, Sylvain Kretschmer, Jean C. Lehureau, Francois Zinger, Michel Hommerin
  • Patent number: 5117448
    Abstract: In an X-ray tube wherein the rotor is supported by passive magnetic bearings, the respective positions of which are such that the rotor is offset in the direction opposite that of the anode, the bearings are mounted on an elastic system which has the effect of compensating for the axial component of the weight of the rotor and of the anode should the tube be tilted.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 20, 1991
    Date of Patent: May 26, 1992
    Assignee: General Electric CGR S.A.
    Inventors: Jean-Marie Penato, Pierre Noualhaguet, Michel Laurent
  • Patent number: 5109860
    Abstract: A curved bar probe (1) for an echograph is fabricated by using a thin support (2) on which is placed a bar of piezoelectric crystal. The bar is divided into a plurality of piezoelectric transducers elements (3). The thin support presents the particularity of being rigid at room temperature but is thermodeformable. By subjecting it to a heating-cooling cycle during which it is given a desired curved shape, a rigid bar having an imposed curved shape is obtained. It is then possible to avoid the adhesion of said support to a base (16). This would form a back-reflecting surface for acoustic waves and would create interference harmful to the useful acoustic signal.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 17, 1989
    Date of Patent: May 5, 1992
    Assignee: General Electric CGR SA
    Inventors: Jean-Francois Gelly, Patrick Dubut, Rene Reynier, Charles Maerfeld
  • Patent number: 5111492
    Abstract: In a system of X-ray diagnosis for angiographic examinations, the passage of a contrast medium is detected by its physiological effects such as the rise in the temperature of the cutaneous tissues, by means of thermocouples positioned on the patient's body. The signals from the thermocouples are processed in a device which gives forward motion signals for a panel supporting the patient and signals for triggering the shooting in such a way that the radiological image includes an image of the contrast medium.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 1, 1991
    Date of Patent: May 5, 1992
    Assignee: General Electric CGR S.A.
    Inventor: Remy Klausz
  • Patent number: 5107367
    Abstract: An optical distributor for deflecting a light beam in different directions comprises a single semi-reflecting mirror 30 carried by a motor-driven turntable 31. The mirror is capable of pivoting about an axis 33 when a stop 46 is withdrawn (position Z of the notch and of the stud 38) and of taking up a position 52 in which it does not intercept the light beam 14. in the other positions (X and Y), the mirror intercepts the beam 14 and deflects it in the desired directions.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 27, 1990
    Date of Patent: April 21, 1992
    Assignee: General Electric CGR SA
    Inventors: Valerie Desnoux, Jean Pelat, Michel Thirouard
  • Patent number: 5105141
    Abstract: Disclosed are a device and a method to control the speed of two-phase or three-phase A.C. motors by means of a three-phase converter. The switching-over instants of the switches of the converter for the control of a two-phase motor are computed so that the signals at the common points of each pair of switches are phase shifted with respect to one another and have no low-order harmonic components. The disclosed device and method are applicable to motors driving rotating anodes for X-ray tubes.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 12, 1990
    Date of Patent: April 14, 1992
    Assignee: General Electric CGR SA
    Inventor: Philippe Ernest